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Employ-ability – The Looming Challenge in India !

‘Employ-ability refers to a person’s capability for gaining and maintaining employment (Hillage and Pollard, 1998).For individuals, employability depends on the knowledge, skills and abilities (KSAs)they possess, the way they present those assets to employers, and the context (e.g. personal circumstances and labour market environment) within which they seek work (Hind and Moss, 2011). As such employability is affected by both supply-side and demand-side factors which are often outside of an individual’s control.’ (Source: Wikipedia)
Increasing Indian businesses in new verticals, in higher volumes and at more number of locations/ points of sales have indeed added pressure on recruitment consultants to find the relevant local talent to meet their client companies’ expectations. I cater to some sunrise sectors like the telecom – including broadband, ISP, Mobile service providers, Audio-video system integrator companies, DTH operators and to the rising retail segment – in Apparels/ Footwear/ Jeans. It becomes an arduous task to find the right local talent within the specified time period and budget of the client; though we do excel by overcoming such challenges and are successful in presenting many candidates to the client to choose from. As such in India, the looming challenge now is Employ-ability – that does not mean only the lack of right talent, it also expresses changing and growing requirements of eligible candidates.

Most couples in today’s times, constitute double-income groups where both the sexes are working – to meet their ever-growing material/ lifestyle needs, to combat rising inflation in the country, to be able to afford own housing in Metropolitan cities or to take advantage of increasing job opportunities across the country. But ironically, many job positions still remain vacant for much longer period of time than required, despite the rising un-employment as a result of uneven spread of working population in the country. Actually, it is quite a complex problem and cannot be solved easily, as some may feel so. Employ-ability as challenge is likely to persist, given the variability in education standards leading to mis-match in expectations or aspirations of the employer and employee. Employee wants the best pay, the best job, lesser work, convenient or flexi work-timings and more perquisites in addition to his monthly pay. Employer wants the best talent with minimum out-goings from his business. This practice of thought process on either sides is nothing new and has been in existence since very long time.

Vernacular medium of education at the graduate level in many states of India, as a result of linguistic division of Indian population, has resulted in ‘new’ challenges of communication in Business schools. There are more MBA degree schools getting established every year to meet the rising needs of Indian industry across the country. But unfortunately, Indian businesses still rely heavily on English speaking abilities of its employees to conduct their business operations, particularly in the Metropolitan cities. Everyday I get request from several job applicants coming from vernacular medium and it becomes difficult to place them on jobs. Again, employ-ability plays a significant factor and more of such candidates do not get placed despite my sincere efforts.

Rapid economic growth has increased urbanization of more towns in India ! In Mumbai, the financial capital of India, employees are willing to spend close to 3-4 hours (or even more) of commuting time every day, to land better jobs for themselves. They leave their much smaller towns to gatecrash ‘Mumbai’ to find better employment terms or benefits (naturally they are without sufficient/ enough means of good survival or own housing). And more often than not, they are not of employ-ability standards either! It becomes a challenging task for the recruitment consultants to get jobs for them. Imbibing good verbal and written Communication skills is a problem to them or their attitude is not suitable to client’s requirements. Clients do not wish to take a gamble especially in such trying times like now – due to economy slowdown as a result of global recession. Some candidates are very good talkers but cannot hold on to a job due to their inability to fulfill the roles assigned to them. Some of these candidates are un-realistically ambitious and/ or emotionally insecure and fail to carry out their official duties successfully. In addition, the increasing job opportunities have nurtured the smart but fickle-minded employees to change their jobs too often thereby making them un-reliable.

In such existing economic conditions, it becomes essential for you to work with the right ‘dependable’ consultant who can recruit the most suitable candidate for you. Get in touch with us today ! Call Rambuna Consultants to get your recruiting problems solved well ahead of time. Because we know and understand what you require !